Mad Detective | |
---|---|
Promotional poster
|
|
Directed by |
Johnnie To Wai Ka-Fai |
Produced by | Johnnie To Wai Ka-Fai |
Written by | Wai Ka-Fai Au Kin-Yee |
Starring |
Sean Lau Lam Ka-Tung Andy On Kelly Lin |
Music by | Xavier Jamaux |
Cinematography | Cheng Siu-Keung |
Edited by | Tina Baz |
Production
company |
|
Distributed by |
China Star Entertainment Group (HK) IFC Films (US) |
Release date
|
|
Running time
|
89 minutes |
Country | Hong Kong |
Language | Cantonese |
Box office | $2,160,790 |
Mad Detective (Chinese: 神探) is a 2007 Hong Kong psychological thriller film produced and directed by Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai. Mad Detective was first screened at the 64th Venice International Film Festival, and later premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, before being released in Hong Kong on 29 November 2007. The film's screenplay won "Best Screenplay" awards at various Asian film ceremonies.
Chan Kwai-Bun (Sean Lau) is a brilliant detective with a supernatural gift seeing a person's "inner personalities," or hidden ghosts. However, he is forced into retirement after severing his ear and presenting it to his retiring boss.
Years later, Inspector Ho Ka-On (Andy On) is investigating the case of Wong Kwok-Chu (Lee Kwok-Lun), a colleague who went missing when he and his partner, Ko Chi-Wai (Lam Ka-Tung), were in pursuit of a suspect. Wong has been AWOL for 18 months, and his gun has been used in a series of armed robberies. Ho turns to Bun, who now lives in seclusion with his imaginary wife, May Cheung (Kelly Lin).
Bun comes out of retirement and discovers that rather than being one man, Chi-Wai is a seven-spirit collective, with each perhaps representing an aspect of the seven deadly sins with the head, or brain, being a business-like woman. He also discovers that Chi-Wai had his gun stolen by an Indian, named Naresh Sherma, so he killed Wong to steal his gun.
When investigating, Bun takes Ho's gun and identification and runs off. Chi-Wai assaults Ho, in an attempt to take his stolen gun. Bun meets Ho again later on where he sees Ho's inner personality, a scared, bewildered child. Ho attempts to take in Chi-Wai by himself but, upon finding out that Chi-Wai's gun, which was taken from Wong, matched Chi-Wai's gun (Chi-Wai altered his gun's information online), he begins to trust Chi-Wai. Bun sends an SMS to Ho, telling him that after Chi-Wai gets his old gun back again by killing Naresh, he would kill Ho, but the latter does not believe him.